For the first time ever, scientists have directly spotted a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting each other, a new study suggests.

This orbital motion — which was noted in observations made over the course of a dozen years — may be the smallest-ever movement detected of an object across the sky, the researchers said.

Wow, talk about painstaking research "observations made over a DOZEN YEARS!"

Here's some more stuff guaranteed to blow your mind for sheer scale:
Judging by the gravitational effects these black holes had on their surroundings, the two behemoths harbor a combined mass about 15 billion times that of the sun, the researchers said. It remains uncertain just how big each black hole is, but the limited data that astronomers currently have suggest that one of the black holes might be two or even four times bigger than the other, said study co-author Roger Romani, an astrophysicist at Stanford University.

Keep in mind we are "seeing" an event that happened billions of years ago. Here's some more on this celestial homicide:

Little Cub is situated near Ursa Major — nicknamed the “Great Bear” constellation, which gives Little Cub its fitting moniker — and the dwarf galaxy is in the process of having its gas sucked dry by a massive nearby galaxy called NGC 3359. That gas is what a dwarf galaxy like Little Cub needs in order to grow larger and form more stars, but it appears it will never have that opportunity.

Scientists see Little Cub as a great example of how a primitive galaxy existed just moments after the Big Bang, and it is preserved in such a way that it could offer some groundbreaking insights into what the universe was like in its very earliest stages. A paper detailing the ongoing research was submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“We may be witnessing the quenching of a near-pristine galaxy as it makes its first passage about a Milky Way-like galaxy,” lead author Tiffany Hsyu, of UC Santa Cruz explains. “It is rare for such a tiny galaxy to still contain gas and be forming stars when it is in close proximity to a much larger galaxy so this is a great opportunity to see just how this process works. Essentially the larger galaxy is removing the fuel that the Little Cub needs to form stars, which will eventually shut down star formation and lead to the smaller galaxy’s demise.”

Experiments with compounds found in the Martian soil show that they are turned into potent bactericides by the ultraviolet light that bathes the planet, effectively sterilising the upper layers of the dusty landscape.

The discovery has wide-ranging implications for the hunt for alien life on the fourth rock from the sun and suggests that missions will have to dig deep underground to find past or present life if it lurks there. The most hospitable environment may lie two or three metres beneath the surface where the soil and any organisms are shielded from intense radiation. “At those depths, it’s possible Martian life may survive,” said Je

Brown dwarfs, or failed stars that resemble rogue planets, are far more abundant than astronomers previously thought. A whopping 100 billion of the small, dim celestial bodies could be lurking throughout the Milky Way, new research suggests.

Like most stars, brown dwarfs form when clouds of interstellar gas and dust collapse under their own gravity. In main-sequence stars, the heat and pressure ignite the core through nuclear fusion. But some aspiring stars never reach that point: instead, they enter a stable state before fusion can begin. Without fusion, these failed stars don't emit much light, and they can be difficult for astronomers to observe. A new study attempts to tally up how many brown dwarfs are hiding in the Milky Way, revealing a number that is much higher than expected.

There will be a major solar eclipse visible from the continental USA on August 21 which will include a TOTAL solar eclipse. This is the first total eclipse seen from the USA since 1979. Here's what you can expect if you're in the direct path of the TOTAL eclipse:

A total solar eclipse is a breathtaking sight. It lasts a few hours as the moon slowly crawls across the face of the sun, obscuring it bit by bit. But the most spectacular part of the eclipse is called totality: the brief period during which the sun is completely concealed by the moon. Totality lasts only a few minutes, but its effects are dramatic. The temperature plummets when the sun disappears, stars and planets become visible in the middle of the day, and on the surface of the Earth, a giant shadow up to 150 miles wide sweeps across the land at speeds approaching 2,000 miles per hour.

Check out the article to see a map showing the total eclipse pathway. Cincinnati is pretty close and will see better than a 90% eclipse.

Tonight the probe Juno will fly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) to take pictures and make some measurements. The GRS is a storm that has been raging for centuries on Jupiter. Stay tuned for what should be spectacular pictures. I'll post them as soon as NASA starts sharing them!

Last year, the existence of an unknown planet in our Solar system was announced. However, this hypothesis was subsequently called into question as biases in the observational data were detected. Now astronomers have used a novel technique to analyze the orbits of the so-called extreme trans-Neptunian objects and, once again, they point out that there is something perturbing them: a planet located at a distance between 300 to 400 times the Earth-Sun separation.

In addition to some great illustrations this article talks about how the creation of "ice quakes" could be used to obtain a subsurface look at Europa's oceans. BTW, Europa is important because after Earth it might be the most hospitable place to find life in the solar system.

Tonight the probe Juno will fly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) to take pictures and make some measurements. The GRS is a storm that has been raging for centuries on Jupiter. Stay tuned for what should be spectacular pictures. I'll post them as soon as NASA starts sharing them!

There will be a major solar eclipse visible from the continental USA on August 21 which will include a TOTAL solar eclipse. This is the first total eclipse seen from the USA since 1979. Here's what you can expect if you're in the direct path of the TOTAL eclipse:

A total solar eclipse is a breathtaking sight. It lasts a few hours as the moon slowly crawls across the face of the sun, obscuring it bit by bit. But the most spectacular part of the eclipse is called totality: the brief period during which the sun is completely concealed by the moon. Totality lasts only a few minutes, but its effects are dramatic. The temperature plummets when the sun disappears, stars and planets become visible in the middle of the day, and on the surface of the Earth, a giant shadow up to 150 miles wide sweeps across the land at speeds approaching 2,000 miles per hour.

Check out the article to see a map showing the total eclipse pathway. Cincinnati is pretty close and will see better than a 90% eclipse.

I'm going to look into traveling south that day. The thing that fascinates me about a total eclipse is when the corona becomes visible, and I've always wanted to see that in person.

I remember a total lunar eclipse in the Columbus OH area, thinking it was June 1969. I had just got a telescope for Christmas, and so did a neighbor of mine, and several of us watched in my backyard. It was somewhat of a disappointment - I expected the moon to disappear. I didn't realize it would still be quite visible during totality, just darker and reddish.

I'm going to look into traveling south that day. The thing that fascinates me about a total eclipse is when the corona becomes visible, and I've always wanted to see that in person.
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I'm tempted that's for sure. I want to wait and get a better feel for the weather forecast in the path on that day. My thought is that motel rooms are probably going to be at a premium along the route but from Cincinnati I could drive down into the path of the total eclipse.

“I can’t put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is the other piece is, at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we don’t have the surface systems available for Mars,” NASA’s William H. Gerstenmaier said on Wednesday during a propulsion meeting at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. “And that entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars.”

I would have more sympathy for NASA adminsitrators feeling a budget crunch had they more strenuously resisted actions by both the republicans and democrats to corrupt the NASA mission of space exploration with stunts like "teachers in space" and "Muslim outreach". These types of activities just distracted the agency and wasted money.

Well if NASA can't make it happen maybe it's time to take a page from the Libertarian playbook and turn the effort over to SpaceX or another private space exploration concern. Provide them with feed funding and then get out of their way (no OSHA inspections please).

I plan on going to Mars with Elon, not NASA. He's got a solar company now that he can use to give his money trees some photosynthesis.

Better than that Musk has SpaceX a company that is establishing a solid record of success in launching space vehicles. My guess is if you gave this guy half of NASA's budget you would get at least twice the output.

Scientists have discovered mystery signals coming from a star 11 light-years away. The “very peculiar” pulses appear to be unique to the red dwarf, scientists say, with observations of similar nearby stars showing no similar behavior.

Researchers at the Arecibo Observatory, in Puerto Rico, were observing a group of red dwarf stars in a bid to identify planets and other objects orbiting them. In April and May, the team recorded information coming from Gliese 436, Ross 128, Wolf 359, HD 95735, BD +202465, V* RY Sex and K2-18.

After analyzing the data, they noticed something odd: Ross 128 had been emitting strange radio signals. In a blog post, Abel Méndez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, said the origin of the radio signals is not known.

Cool article with some nice pics. Also I couldn't help but to notice this little bit:

So what could they be? Scientists have three potential explanations at the moment: They could be emissions similar to a Type II solar flare; emissions from another object in the field of view of the star; or they are coming from a high-orbit satellite.

“Each of the possible explanations has their own problems,” Méndez wrote. “For example, Type II solar flares occur at much lower frequencies and the dispersion suggests a much farther source or a dense electron field (e.g. the stellar atmosphere?). Also, there are not many nearby objects in the field of view of Ross 128 and we have never seen satellites emit bursts like that, which were common in our other star observations.

“In case you are wondering, the recurrent aliens hypothesis is at the bottom of many other better explanations.”

Wow, even though he says this is the least likely outcome of his "better explanations" it's still very cool he even mentions it with a straight face. As we improve our deep space scanning ability we are going to find ET out there. It's just a matter of time!

The attached videos are stunning (Pluto sure looks COLD) and there are pictures of Charon to. The probe is now racing further out of the solar system to check out some other rocks orbiting even farther from the sun.

A reminder that there are big rocks in our solar system that go BUMP in the night.

New research by University of Colorado Boulder professor Stephen Mojzsis outlines a likely cause for these mysterious features of Mars: a colossal impact with a large asteroid early in the planet's history. This asteroid -- about the size of Ceres, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System -- smashed into Mars, ripped off a chunk of the northern hemisphere and left behind a legacy of metallic elements in the planet's interior. The crash also created a ring of rocky debris around Mars that may have later clumped together to form its moons, Phobos and Deimos.

The attached videos are stunning (Pluto sure looks COLD) and there are pictures of Charon to. The probe is now racing further out of the solar system to check out some other rocks orbiting even farther from the sun.

Barnards star, which is a red dwarf, is only 6 light years away and there is evidence it has at least one planet in orbit. Unfortunately:

However, the characteristics of red dwarf stars make it less likely that an exoplanet would be home to life, according to Zuluaga.

"A larger magnetic field produces a more intense stellar activity," Zuluaga said. "As a consequence, red dwarfs may affect significantly the habitability of their planets." By observing the radio emission from an active red dwarf, Zuluaga said he believes scientists can come to understand the environment of the hypothetical planets.

Well there's always Terraforming! Check out the article to see a nice "map" of our Sun's galactic neighborhood with distances to the nearest stars.

Okay Ellon Musk needs to hire a PR guy to sell seats on his rockets because I just don't think this will do - Elon Musk quote: "the first passengers on SpaceX rockets must be brave." They should focus on the great view and the therapeutic wonders of zero G!

"There is a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy, a real good chance that that vehicle doesn’t make it to orbit," he said. "I’m saying full disclosure here, man."

Then there is the bureaucratic definition of "safety":

Government reviews have echoed some of his concerns. The Government Accountability Office found earlier this year that SpaceX and competitor Boeing Co. must contend with potential safety hazards that may postpone approvals for transporting astronauts until 2019. A U.S. contract with Russia for transportation to the space station expires that year.

The GAO’s findings follow a September report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General, which warned of “multiple challenges that will likely delay the first routine flight carrying NASA astronauts to the ISS until late 2018.” Agency funding challenges, delays in NASA’s evaluation process and technical challenges with spacecraft designs have all contributed to the program falling behind schedule.

I get that "safety" is important but there will be trade offs. The whole idea of "safety" and space exploration needs to be worked out. There is NO way you can push at the frontiers of the solar system and not have real risks. People will die doing this and we can't retreat into a shell, like we did after Challenger, when a disaster occurs. If we did that at the dawn of aviation we would still be spending weeks on a boat to get to Europe.

In the article the author quoted the great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein reaction to the moon landing:

"I think this whole business today has been thought of in too small of terms," he said. "This is the greatest event in all of the history of the human race up until this time. Today is New Year’s Day of Year One. If we don’t change the calendar, historians will do so." By landing on another world, Heinlein asserts, humankind has gone through puberty, confirmation, and a bat mitzvah all at once. "This is the biggest day the human race has ever seen," he adds, "the most important thing since the human race learned to talk."

It's unfortunate that Heinlein was wrong because he didn't fully appreciate that by 1969 the American political class was to inept, corrupt and narrow minded to get behind and sustain a truly game changing space program. After the moon landings it's fair to say that we have under-performed and squandered the amazing moment that happened almost a half century ago.

It is to our generations collective shame that we listened to the self centered voices crying that we shouldn't "waste" money on exploring space but rather use it to solve problems on earth. Instead of leaving our children & grand children off-earth colonies and a thriving space based industrial economy we leave them more than $20,000,000,000,000 in debt. But at least we solved all those problems here on earth right? Actually no we didn't and they're still with us waiting for another ten trillion dollars of "program" funding.

Thankfully there is an emerging class of visionary entrepreneurs that understand that the survival of the human race depends on our expanding into space. That the jobs and economic opportunities will increasingly be outside the earths atmosphere. Our advice to government should be simple: "you incompetent buffoons squandered your chance to lead us into space now get the hell out of the way of those who will take us there".

If humans are ever really going to make it to Mars, we’re going to need a bigger boat.

Today’s spaceships are built for short hauls to and from the International Space Station, a mere six or so hours away. These ships, like the Russian Soyuz, SpaceX’s Dragon, NASA’s upcoming Orion capsule, are small, cramped, and they don’t have bathrooms or sleeping quarters. These space canoes simple won’t do for nine-month ride to Mars. That’s why NASA has commissioned six companies to research designs larger deep space habitats that will put the ship into spaceship.

Lockheed Martin is one of the companies that’s developing a concept for NASA, and on Thursday it announced plans to build a life-size prototype of its Deep Space Gateway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

And the beat goes on! I remember not to long ago when the debate in astronomy was about whether planets even existed outside our solar system and just how "rare" they might be. Now they're a dime a dozen: